


the wings here aren't yours

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Breathplay, Depression, Fame or Infamy- the Pete Wentz Story, Friends With Benefits, Insomnia, M/M, Mania, Touring, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:11:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14596749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: Glass or diamonds, Pete jokes, in what will later be known as one of their last days in the van.No one laughs. Pete cackles until his ribs are sore.





	the wings here aren't yours

**Author's Note:**

> I made a an awesome playlist about messy relationships for this one, so I hope this delivers the vibe I was going for. 
> 
> I own nothing, besides the title, enjoy!

  
  
The night is lights and cold and electricity buzzing beneath skin with every movement.

They’re playing a club teetering on the edges of Chicago where the audience is screaming _their_ names and _their_ lyrics as Patrick sings them. Pete screams into the microphone, high with it. The audience screams back and it almost feels like being wanted. He wants to lock it all away and keep it.

After, Pete swings himself into any direction that will take him. Andy bumps him when Joe sidesteps and Pete lands in Patrick’s face, hands scrambling for perch.

He’s giggling, bordering hysterics from the after-show high, and half conscious of the words flowing from his mouth. There’s a string of rambles Pete doesn’t even notice mumbling until Joe starts laughing.

“Holy shit,” Joe shouts, swaying into Andy who nods in sentiment. Pete thinks there’s a little more to that, but the words won’t show themselves.

Pete’s smiling so wide it hurts, holding Patrick’s face in his hands, thumbs brushing over cheekbones as he echoes the words his thoughts have strung together like a half-formed chorus, “We’re gonna rule the fucking world.”

He pins Patrick’s smile between his fingertips, presses a thumb into a corner and seals it in like a promise.

The world’s burning behind them and Pete’s going with it, beating out fading by burning himself straight through.

It should hurt worse. It doesn’t feel as wrong as it should. Someone lit the match and forgot to check. Pete measures the wick in Patrick’s smile.

Patrick stares, his own smile stretching across his face as he nods, and his eyes shine like he believes him.

The night is fire and Patrick and burning. It’s electric too the point where he almost forgets to breathe.

Joe says, “I think this is a beginning, dudes.” Andy rolls his eyes.

Pete doesn’t disagree.

.

Venues pass as quickly as state lines beneath van wheels. There’s payment in beer and groupies, and Pete’s had too many of one of those tonight and perception shifts into something golden.

Patrick’s laughing, flushed and giddy, and he looks beautiful bathed in the near dawn moonlight reflecting off the van mirrors, staining the road behind them.

Pete’s on the good side of drunk, warm and fuzzy, and they’re piled on top of each other in the back of the van waiting for Joe and Andy to come back with snacks.

Patrick laughs again, and Pete looks over at him, feeling the smile stretch across his lips as he asks, “What’s so funny?”

“You,” Patrick shrugs, both of them regressing into laughter. Patrick’s lying on his chest and Pete’s heart does something quick and painful. He’s burning with an idea he hasn’t been able to lose for too many miles. It feels like it’s worn into his skin.

“I wanna try something,” Pete murmurs as he sits up. Patrick doesn’t do anything as Pete leans forward, but Pete thinks he hears his breath stutter. Patrick’s eyes get wider, and Pete chuckles, lets their breath mingle and the night wash over them before he leans forward.

When their lips brush the world kind of explodes.

Joe opens the passenger door, and Patrick pulls back with a yelp when he falls on his ass. Joe laughs, and Andy sighs as he turns the keys.

Patrick keeps stealing glances for the rest of the ride, and Pete licks his lips, slow, and winks. Patrick flushes, but doesn’t turn away as he bites his lip. The glances don’t stop.

Pete swears he can still taste magic and something bitter lingering from Patrick’s lips. So when Patrick looks again Pete smiles, curls his tongue beneath his teeth to put on a show. He falls into himself giggling when Patrick blushes and rolls his eyes.

.

Vans turn to buses turn to tours with official dates and fans that know more than just their songs and names.

Lyrics turn to something handled with reverence, like they’re spun from gold instead of bleeding brains and shattered glass.

 _Glass or diamonds_ , Pete jokes, in what will later be known as one of their last days in the van.

No one laughs. Pete cackles until his ribs are sore.

.

The shows become something different once they get the buses and the stadiums and all the lights and tricks. The shows become a little less them and a little more _performance_. Pete’s always been better with the latter, but the shows evoke something buried in Patrick.

Sweet and careful van kisses shift in the transition to tour bus and become something starving and consuming simultaneously.

Patrick corners him in the nearest storage closet, both of them too high on post-show adrenaline to come down now, so when Patrick leans forward, holds Pete’s face in his hands like he’s something breakable, Pete doesn’t stop him.

Instead, he brings one hand up to the back of Patrick’s neck and the other rests on his hip until Pete feels daring enough to run it under his shirt.

He falls into the little sighs he can draw out of Patrick when he bites down on his bottom lip, throws his head back when Patrick moves his lips to his neck. Let’s himself sink into the way Patrick shifts his hips when Pete moves them just right. The way he stutters Pete’s name out like it’s a prayer.

Patrick likes leaving lasting marks, and Pete likes wearing them. It’s like a game- all touch and no time to look for as quick as Pete learns to cover.

It still feels like waiting out the inevitable, but at least now he has a timer.

.

When Joe said it was the beginning, Pete immediately started wondering about the end.

The pathways to it, from it, around and over it.

The shows start to filter in and people start to notice the scratches on Pete’s arms and how they match with shards of glass from windows reported broken in gossip magazines.

He has a feeling the ending isn’t supposed to come so quickly after the beginning, but the lyrics Patrick’s singing and the scars on his arms are arguing differently.

.

The stages fade into each other until they’re utterly indecipherable. Pete feels like he should be floating- a spirit held down by their body like dead weight. There’s a lyric buried in there somewhere, but he doesn’t look for it. Not when it feels like there’s something else bubbling under the skin trying to escape.

Pete can feel the claws scraping beneath his skin.

 _I’m losing my mind,_ Pete thinks, somewhere between Reno and Vegas. More lights, same music, not so different but still different shows.

Patrick raises an eyebrow, looks at Pete like he can’t see the thing vibrating through him. He’s all bravato and snark and something cruel teetering on the edges when he says, _Who said you ever had it?_

Pete laughs so hard he wakes up with air bubbles caught in his throat, coughing. Patrick’s head is in his lap, eyes still closed. Pete wants to shake him until he turns into something starving.

Joe asks him what the hell’s so funny from the other end of the couch, the bus rocking as they roll down the highway. Pete’s slow to meet his eyes.

Joe raises an eyebrow. He rolls his eyes when Pete just smiles, all teeth.

.

Patrick goes red when he’s furious.

Pete likes Patrick when he gets angry, face shoved into Pete’s, hands grasping the collar of Pete’s shirt, eyes glowing like he’s ready to pounce. He becomes all blood and fury and bones, unleashes the monster Pete feels like underneath. Pete lives for it.

He pushes Patrick until he’s at the brink and even then, even when Patrick’s red face is up in his, it’s still not enough until there’s a hand at his throat and sparks in his vision.

Pete’s on the edge, torn somewhere between beginnings and ending, and they’re alone in the hotel room. It’s too hot inside and Patrick’s already annoyed. It’s an imperfectly perfect scenario.

Pete stands and plops himself in front of the fan, blocking Patrick’s access completely. Patrick _growls_. Pete wants to drown in it.

“Move the fuck over, Wentz,” Patrick tells him, rough and raging. Pete’s smirk widens as he inches closer, hyper aware of the dark marks fading on his chest, still blocking the fan as Patrick’s narrow eyes watch him, lips curled up in a snarl.

Pete wants to uncurl the animal underneath, wants to say, _I’ll show you mine if you show me yours_ , but he doesn’t think Patrick would laugh.

“How about,” Pete whispers instead, leans close enough to run a thumb across Patrick’s bottom lip, feels Patrick’s breaths against his cheek, and how it stutters when he leans further in, “you _make_ me.”

When Patrick pulls him forward he’s quick hands and pulling Pete’s hair until he yelps, baring his throat.

Patrick kisses like a punch. Pete’s sure his mouth will be bruised, after. He likes to think there will be little rings of remembrance encircling them, dark marks on the edges of his lips that read _Patrick_.

Patrick bites down hard enough to draw blood, and Pete ceases to exist.

.

There’s another window, another bloody bandage, screaming match and livejournal entry. Their manager gives him a card. The teen gossip magazines eat it up. The websites devour every word.

Everything just eats it all up.

.

Pete’s missing at least three nights of sleep.

There’s a journal somewhere that has it all written down- the spiral, the ending, the flames. Pete thinks he left it in a gas station bathroom. Ripped out all the pages trying to stuff them into something that would glow before he tore them all to shreds, creating ash to have something to follow.

He can hear all the blood inside of him. He’s itching to tear it out.

Joe takes away his coffee and journal. Patrick just stares at him, says, “Three days, Pete.”

He says like he’s tired of saying it. Pete’s tired of hearing it. The world feels too big, the night doesn’t feel like a _welcome_. Too many things are missing besides just serotonin and dopamine.

“Does that make me a new-age Jesus?” Pete asks, smiling until he can feel the cracks in his face. Andy slaps the back of his head.

Joe just says, “That doesn’t even make sense, dude.”

Pete laughs like it’s funny.

The next night, Patrick crawls into his bunk and says, “I can sing you something,” fingers drumming a soft beat across his arms, Pete’s heartbeat moving to the rhythm. Pete wonders if he’s tracing the bruises he left from last time.

Pete doesn’t move and Patrick doesn’t leave.

Patrick sings whatever he remembers until the world shrinks down and the night becomes _less._ Patrick’s still singing when Pete’s finally loose enough to close his eyes.

.

There are a lot of things Pete doesn’t have to tell Patrick. Thoughts and feelings that Patrick gets through the lyrics he’s handed with small smiles, and crafts them into a melody that makes Pete’s bones vibrate with how _right_ he’s made it.

Patrick knows how to make music because Patrick _is_ music- inside and out. Patrick’s vibrating with it, and Pete watches him sing the lyrics Pete’s spent months scrawling on any flat surface he could find, fingers digging deeper into copper strings as blood smear from skin to metal, wondering when they all became about him.

He wonders when they’ll finally stop.

Pete’s fingers slip from the blood and he misses a chord between a song transition they’ve made hundreds of times before.

No one notices.

.

“Gosh, “Trick,” Pete murmurs, brushing his lips, soft.

It’s another city, another venues, more bruises to cover.

He balances himself on Patrick’s thighs and sighs when he sees Patrick- eyes lidded and cheeks flushed. He runs a thumb over Patrick’s bottom lip, breathes a laugh, “Look at you. Like an open book, I swear.”

The bus is hot and damp and the wrong side of steamy. Florida always sounds like more fun on the map than it is by bus. Pete doesn’t think about the sweat stuck to his skin, which bunk he’ll be sleeping in tonight, not any of the next few nights on the course to the end.

It’s just Patrick and movement and _now_. Pete shifts and bites his lip.

Patrick glares, eyes lidded and going dark, and Pete sees but doesn’t take the warning. He continues, “Bet I could tell you everything about yourself. Bet I’d get most of it right, too.”

Patrick takes the bait, says, “You don’t know all my secrets.”

Pete bites his lip hard enough to nearly draw blood. They both know it’s a lie before it’s even out of his mouth, but Pete lets him keep it.

Patrick’s narrowed eyes and hips still thrusting even with Pete laughing on his lap, forehead falling forward to meet Patrick’s. He leans down and bites at Patrick’s throat, grin buried in the curve of his neck, vibrating through his skin with the noises Patrick’s making.

Pete leans back when he feels Patrick’s hand sliding up his neck. His eyes fall shut when Patrick wraps his hand around his throat and _squeezes._

It’s light at first, a warning, but then Pete bucks forward, and the grip gets tighter until he’s seeing spots of white. There’s blood rushing in his ears, heartbeat in fingertips, and Pete tilts his head back barring his throat and giving Patrick more room to touch.

Patrick takes it with greedy hands, fingers sliding down, slow, around the newly exposed skin before he curls his knuckles around Pete’s throat, tighter than the first time.  
  
He’s reduced to instinct and motion, grinding down and throat bared, head empty. It’s stilted beauty growing in chaos, anger and adrenaline and _Patrick._  The world gets darker, smaller- compacted into them.  
  
Patrick loosens his grip as his thrusts turn frantic, and then Pete’s choking on air and coming back to himself, eyes slide open long enough to catch a glance. Patrick’s mouth is a pretty and spot slick and a perfect _O_ when his hips crash forward, fingers lowering to grip Pete’s hips hard enough where he _knows_ there will be bruises, and he breathes out, “Pete.”  
  
It’s a sigh wrapped in early morning blessings and midnight curses as Patrick arches up and Pete catches his lips as hips stutter and breathing becomes a backdrop to _PatrickPatrickPatrick_. Pete watches Patrick’s eyes flutter shut before him as he falls apart, hands pulling and bruising hips, and then Pete’s following.  
  
When they’re both finished, he pushes Patrick against the couch and curls around him. His fingers trace his neck where he knows the rings will show tomorrow. Faded patches of blue and purple, unmistakable.  
  
The world starts to grow back and the bus is suddenly to small for both of them. The dampness isn’t something he can push away, but instead becomes something consuming. The air touches his skin and Pete wants to burn it off. He’s suffocating and he needs Patrick to tell him he’s not alone in it.

Patrick doesn’t.

Patrick hums when Pete buries his face in his neck, throwing an arm around his waist. Pete closes his eyes and tries to will away the damp feeling soaking into him.

When Patrick’s breaths ease into something steady, he slips out with a pair of clothes and hoodie pulled over his head. Everything feels blurry on the edges, like if he touches anything it’ll crumble apart at the seams. He feels caught somewhere in the in-between, like he doesn’t know where movement begins and motion ends.

He can almost taste the cotton filling his head, spilling into his other senses. He walks until his legs stop him.

Pete blinks and he’s in a park, the sun starting to rise where it just set a few hours ago. He blinks, again, realizes he doesn’t know where he is. The world’s still damp.

Pete watches the sun pull itself into view before he picks up his phone to call Andy.  
  
.

Patrick’s contagious in that once Pete tries him on he can never quite scrub him off.

It’s fitting, almost. He’s never been good with bright things, anyway. Always liked getting burned by them a little too much.

He still tries, though, scrubbing the kid off. He ends up with five more pages of half formed lyrics and his head in the hotel room toilet. Pete looks at the words scrawled across hotel notepads, and feels bone deep tired of having to carve out his own heart, still beating and blood red, for the world. No one else seems to mind.

There’s an album brimming beneath it all, and it almost makes it all worse.

.

The thing about Pete ending up nearly a state away overnight without recall, is that it’s not unusual. Andy helps him search for street signs, tone gentle as he talks him through it, and then calls a cab for him. He doesn’t ask why Pete doesn’t know how he got there or why he is.

Somewhere along their initial formation, Pete paved his own path of not so surprising surprises and everyone else adapted. He almost wishes someone would ask, it could be a funny joke if they let it. No one laughs at Pete’s jokes anymore.

When Pete gets back, Patrick raises an eyebrow, mouth down turned in concern. Pete looks away. It doesn’t mean anything when Patrick’s shoulder brushes his when they’re piling into the bus.

He falls onto the couch, eyelids already dropping. Someone brushes his bangs from his face and  Patrick’s voice is saying something, mixing with a few others. Pete doesn’t move. The wheels in his head stop turning and the dampness on his skin washes away.

When the voices stop the hand on his forehead does too. Pete doesn’t try to bring it back.

.

 

The world is reduced to shows and buses and vivid colors that linger behind eyelids. It’s no more Chicago and trying to survive in the brimming pit of LA and all the shark eyes and ears that surround it.

Most parties Pete shows up to and doesn’t remember leaving. The benders start to last weeks on end, supply him with enough for weeks on the bus. Joe’s there for some; Patrick for less; Andy never.

It’s beauty and spin and forgetting about the road sign a few streets down that reads _THE END_ when he trips over something like it on a bottle description and laughs himself into a puddle.

Andy’s the one who notices the benders. Patrick’s the one who stops them.

Pete pops four more pills on a strangers couch before anyone can say a word, and sinks.

.

Pete doesn’t stop asking for the bruises, Patrick just stops giving them. It’s a tell for something Pete doesn’t want to ask about, so he doesn’t. He presses himself harder into Patrick, instead, and hopes the anger burning beneath his skin takes over.

Patrick starts to look closer- after shows, in hotel rooms, making sure there are no more parties or pills. He watches and waits like Pete’s the bomb that’s yet to go off and he’ll be there to find all the pieces. He’s half right.

Pete’s skin feels too tight. He wants to peel it off and dance with it, wants to watch as everyone’s face melt into horror when they see. Mostly, he wants everyone to at least _look_.

Patrick’s humming somewhere on the bus, and Pete grits his teeth, listens to the world play out around him.

Something’s burning in his throat and it’s not the alcohol. He almost wishes it was something worse.

.

“Did you eat today?” Patrick says, looking up from under his lashes. Not _good morning_ or _did you sleep through the night this time,_ just cold concern from a mouth Pete was kissing raw a few days ago.

Patrick read the medicine bottles before Pete did, memorized all the little lines inscribed with lies like a script, and took the _take with food_ part to heart. Pete wonders what telling him the meds aren’t working would do.

He has half-a-mind to tell him he’s not taking them anymore, just to see what would happen. Stand back and watch as all the pretty parts of Patrick’s face break apart before coming back together a little different, a little less with a fracture and a lot more rage.

Pete nods instead and takes a seat at the table across the room. Patrick’s eyes are narrowed when Pete meets his eyes.

“Don’t lie to me,” Patrick says, calm. “I hate when you do that.”

There’s a list of things Pete hates too, and right now he’s almost tempted to add him to the top.

Joe sighs, falls onto Patrick’s shoulder with a whine, pulling them both further onto the couch, pushing Pete out of sight. “Can you get out of Pete’s head for a second and help me?”

Andy snickers into his cereal. The world rocks with it.

“Patrick isn’t in my head,” Pete says. He’s heartbeat in the throat and numb in his fingertips, half-wondering if it’s possible to play heartstrings like bass, the other half thinking how much more blood that would cost him. Tour’s almost over and Pete’s nearly shaking with what’s to come after.

Andy scoffs and shakes his head. Patrick smirks like he’s won something. Pete fingers twitch, and he runs a finger across bruised over knuckles. He has two more days before he can search out another fight. He feels dizzy with it.

Joe rolls his eyes, says, “Yeah. Sure, dude.”

Andy stands and takes his plate to the trash while Patrick listens to Joe’s question, nodding, and Pete fades into the background.

Pete is rushing blood and a half-cracked brain- too late to realize when they’ve finally boarded the bus, and too in tune with the wheels when they finally start tearing down the highway.

.  
  
  
The world is all flash and flames and _Fall Out Boy,_ now.

Shows and lyrics and bruises that don’t last long enough. They have merchandise, now, and ex-fans calling them sellouts after one album. Pete said it was the price of fame, and Patrick laughed like he didn’t understand but wanted to. It almost counts. A lot of things are almost, these days.

Andy says, after at least twenty declined party invitations, some odd music award nominations, and ten pending collaboration messages, “I think we’ve made it.”

Joe nods, looking thoughtful and smiling when he says, “Yeah. I think we have.”

Patrick rolls his eyes when Joe leans over to blow smoke out the window. He hits his arm when he passes, and Joe laughs at the weak attempt.

Pete stops paying attention and lets the world blur to the background as he runs a finger across the fading bruises on his wrist, tracing over them lightly. Someone on the bus laughs and he curls further into Patrick’s lap, burying his face in the couch.

When he closes his eyes, he pretends the tide isn’t coming for him when it all starts to sink in.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and Kudos are very much appreciated and I'm rhymesofblau on tumblr.


End file.
